Secular Islam

Randi Rhodes keeps harping on the idea that there’s a warped misogynistic, sado-masochistic, repressed-homosexuality theme running through a lot of what’s going on today in the Republican party and in our military fiasco in Iraq — phone sex with congressional pages, torture at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and black prisons, and of course, the wild popularity of shows like “24.”

Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 11:49 AMSubject: Re: Secular Islam

The brief declaration of these secular “Islamists” is reasonable, but it is what they don’t say that tells the
most. For example, they mention Glenn Beck’s support of their movement, and he had a whole program praising them. But Glenn Beck is a raging Islamophobe. The secularists question the existence of Islamophobia, putting quotation marks around the word. But Beck the other day (on his CNN Headline News hour long program) mentioned “the dirt bags in the Middle East who sell us oil.” A while back Beck suggested that Iran was going to nuke Israel on a certain day, motivated by whacky millennial religious prophesies. Of course it never happened. His take on the Iraq war is “we should kill them before they kill us.” So in Beck’s view there is a lot of killing to do – and that is the necessary final solution to put a stop to what these dirt bags are up to. He is a prime example of an opportunist who has discovered that 100% support of Israeli expansionism is a key to success in the US media (he himself is Mormon). How any self-respecting Muslim could sit down with him without challenging his crude racism and advocacy of violence against Muslims is most perplexing, unless we get into the question of the financing of this group.

I suppose these secularists will have nothing to say about Christian Zionism. There will not be a single word of criticism of televangelist John Hagee, who in his recent big selling book “Countdown to Jerusalem” presents a map of Israel, as he says God will have it. It includes all of Lebanon, Jordan and Kuwait, and most of Syria and Iraq. It is a huge swath, including vast oil reserves, going eastward to the Euphrates river. Hagee, in his widely broadcast daily TV program, recently said there were 10 Al Qaeda sleeper cells in the US that planned to nuke American cities all on a certain day. This may have been inspired by the popular TV program “24”, which features Keither Sutherland torturing Arab prisoners until they reveal such plans. Many right wingers in the US are turned on by these torture scenes, and recently the US military expressed concern about the bad influence of “24” on cadets at West Point. Hagee, in the tradition of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, claims a reality for all this. Yet these secular Islamists put quotation marks around the word Islamophobia! Daniel

Help! There was an article in our paper a few days ago, lauding the efforts of “secular Muslims” (is that anything like religious Episcopalians?) at a recent summit in St. Petersburg, Florida. The gist of it was that no one in the Western press gave it the attention it deserved since it was all about taking back Islam from the fundamentalists.

I checked out their website (http://www.secularislam.org) and was immediately suspicious that it is yet another traveling show of “I once was a Muslim wretch” Faux News and 700 Club darlings. Anytime a group says that the Washington Times loves them but the Washington Post doesn’t, I get suspicious. On top of that, there’s a cross-link to Arabs For Israel (http://arabsforisrael.com/) on the website and one of the speakers had just written a book titled “Defending the West: A Critique of Edward Said’s Orientalism.”

So, are my suspicions justified? Is this another misinformation/propaganda front to keep us all scared to death of those hordes of Jesus-hating darkies arrayed against us (and even amongst us)? Or is this in fact an honest effort by moderate intellectuals hell-bent (apologies all, but that is self-amusing, given the context) on reforming their Islamic faith? Who funds this group? Any information short of telling me to report myself to the nearest JDL center is appreciated.

PS — if you go to the .com version of the above .org site, you will be redirected to a site that is thoroughly pro-Islam. Today’s verse is: The blame is only against those who oppress men and wrong-doing and insolently transgress beyond bounds through the land, defying right and justice: for such there will be a penalty grievous. al-Qur’an 42:42

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